Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan McGregor, and Jimmy Smits are all willing to accept more money to appear in more Star Wars

Most of the possible casting for the next Star Wars trilogy has focused on cornering original series stars like Carrie Fisher and Billy Dee Williams on the street and in gas stations, then refusing to leave them alone until they say something vaguely amenable. But lest we forget due to years of attempting to, there is an entire cast of prequel stars whom we can also badger about being in the films that they are not writing, know nothing about as of yet, and have no say in being a part of. Stars such as Jimmy Smits, Ewan McGregor, and Samuel L. Jackson, as all of them have spent the past few weeks offering their own cautious enthusiasm for the idea of being paid a lot of money to appear in more very successful movies, regardless of whether it makes sense for their character or whatever the new plot lines might be.

For example, Smits offered this appraisal of the likelihood of his character, Bail Organa, turning up years after the events of Return Of The Jedi, despite his entire planet being destroyed long before that and also being very old: "My character was gone after episode whatever. If they want to call, let them call.” Ewan McGregor was equally diplomatic about the possibility of Obi-Wan Kenobi returning (an idea that doesn't strain Star Wars logic, at least, seeing as Obi-Wan is already a Force ghost, and those change all the time and you can just stick them anywhere), telling The Washington Post, "If Obi-Wan Kenobi’s in them, well, it can’t be Alec Guinness out there anymore so I would do it. I wouldn’t want someone else to do it." McGregor then added, " But maybe he wouldn’t be. Maybe he’s not going to be in them" with a healthy sense of doubt, before allowing, "Maybe I’ll be a hologram here or there."

And for what it's worth, Jackson is also keen on the "ghost hologram" idea for his character Mace Windu, who was last seen losing an arm before being thrown to his death in a pivotal scene that signified Anakin Skywalker's turn to the Dark Side. But as with all things Star Wars, why let that moment stand as is and carry some semblance of import, when you could change it so that, as Jackson explains, "Maybe everyone thinks I'm dead and we'll find out what happened to Mace Windu. I can come back as a one-armed or a one-handed Jedi that's still around that didn't actually die"? Maybe! There are definitely lots of things that we could do to start fresh with Star Wars, and awkwardly retconning past events and shoehorning in characters who were long thought dead for the sake of brand recognition is certainly one way to go with that.